


Lest You Die Before Me

by serapheim



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Brilliant Heart, Brilliant Mind, Character Death, Contemplation, Friendship, Gen, His Heart, His Mind, Implied Character Death, POV First Person, Post Reichenbach, Things he never said, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 12:57:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serapheim/pseuds/serapheim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John never thought that Sherlock would be the first one to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lest You Die Before Me

You are brilliant. Yes, you are, you insufferable git. You are a genius and also an idiot. You do not value your life above the purpose. The idea, the goal, the game is all that occupies you. And when you see it, when you can taste the thrill, you rush forward without looking back.  
  
You avoid food like a plague. You snort in disdain at my attempts to lure you into eating anything more substantial than a mouthful of cold tea and endless line of nicotine patches on your arm. You ignore any reasoning that more than one nicotine patch is not healthy. And over three is actually suicidal.  
  
You mutter something about seven percent solution and avoid me for hours.  
  
It takes me some time to get used to your abrupt silences and scornful looks. Now I know that you simply want to focus all of your attention on the case, and even though your self-destruction menthods are never safe, they also never hurt anyone but you.  
  
You exhaust yourself to the point of total breakdown, and then, at the moment of faint awareness and altered state of consciousness, you come to the conclusion, which is so simple and so evident to no one but you, that you laugh like a maniac and startle me from my light doze in the chair.  
  
Your eyes shine like electrodes, your sheer brilliance creates a magnetic field I can not help being attracted to.  
  
We run, we chase. We get the suspect. We solve the case.  
  
You solve it.  
  
You.  
  
With your breathless giddy exclamations and annoyed snarls, with your billowing coat and upturned collar. You do that at mind-blowing pace, while running through London streets, or lying comatose on the couch. You create a whole new world from one crime scene. You paint it in various shades of azure and vibrant magenta, and I can’t breath from the sheer excitement of being part of your universe.  
  
Like a small, lonely satellite I circle your bright star and wonder what would happen if I come too close. Will I die fast or will it be slow?  
  
I always think about dying, when we chase criminals. As we run through the streets, I wonder if he has a gun. If he has accomplices. If those accomplices have guns. Maybe someone would spring on us from around the corner. Maybe someone would outrun us, outsmart you.  
  
Maybe there will be a shot.  
  
I think about that a lot. But I do not dwell on how it would end. Because I know how it would end. You would run and I would follow you, and somebody would threaten your life, and I will be there to save you.  
  
Because nothing scares me more than the thought that you might go before me.  
  
I am older. I have been through war. I was shot at. I know how it feels. I know I can handle it. Can handle the pain, and the surgery, and the recovery.  
  
If there is one.  
  
I am ordinary. Expendable. Ending my life to save yours would be worth surviving Afghanistan. It would be worth being shot and invalided back to London.  
  
It would be worth being so lonely and desperate for so long.  
  
That is why I hate it when you behave as if your body is secondary to your brain. You say it is just a transport to your intellect and I can’t help cringing inside. Your brain can not exist without your body.  
  
And you are very good at slowly killing your own body by negligence.  
  
Scarps of food instead of healthy meals, coffee and tea instead of water or juice. Nicotine patches and god knows what other chemical substances instead of full night sleep.  
  
It is revolting and disturbing to see you kill yourself before my eyes.  
  
I think about this a lot. I never say it out loud. Because I am too naive to believe that some part of your deep buried instincts would kick in some day and save you from making some grieve mistake.  
  
And then you take a step from St. Bart’s roof.  
  
And my whole world ends, because without a sun to circle around, I am just a piece of cold hard stone, levitating in empty outer space without a purpose.  
  
I am done. I am alive, while you are dead.  
  
It is so wrong. It should be reversed.  
  
I should be dead. Me, a simple satellite, should burn from your radiance, turn into space dust and be scattered across your universe.  
  
But I am still here. And my sun is gone.  
  
The light is out.  
  
I should have told you this, while you were still on that roof.  
I should have told you, lest you die before me, I will be the first to jump.  
  
  
//  
  
Monday, 25 March, 2013


End file.
